Storing of an elevator rope may be needed in various stages of its lifetime. The storing is conventionally implemented by forming a rope reel of the rope so that it can be stored and/or transported as a compact unit. In the field of elevators, storing is usually needed for transporting the rope from production to the site, and further to the specific installation location where the rope can be unwound and installed in the elevator.
There are a lot of potential places in logistics chain as well as during installation where rope can be damaged without having visual indication about failure. Such invisible damages include mechanical damages during transportation, environmental effects that can cause extra stress or overload of the rope, specified temperature- and/or humidity levels exceeded during logistics chain, such as storing the rope under the sun, as well as mechanical damages during installation such as tight bending of punch or rope leaves in high compression.
Ropes comprising load bearing members made of twisted wires or equivalents are typically irreversibly flexible such that after bending the rope into a curve, it does not reverse back to its original form and the rope is easy to wind around a drum where it can be stored until a later unwinding. Such wires are typically uncoated and easy to inspect visually. However, there are also ropes which are rod-like and have a straight form when they are in rest state. Such a rope is presented in patent publication WO 2009090299 A1, for instance. This kind of rope is relatively rigid, but elastically bendable, and the rope self-reverses back to a straight form from bent form in rest state after all bending directed to it ceases. In this kind of rope load bearing components are inside the coating surface. Therefore, visual check of potential damages might be sometimes difficult or even impossible. There is a need for a method with which load bearing components inside the coating can be inspected and condition of the rope reliably monitored without visual inspection.